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PubltaliPb  bg  tl}t  Mmurrattg  of  CUtnrinttatl 

Series  II.  SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER,  1908.  Vol.  IV.    No.  3 

The  Authority  of  Law  in 
Language 

By  GEORGE  PHILIP  KRAPP,  Ph.  D., 

Professor  of  English, 
University  of  Cincinnati. 


Issued  Bi-Monthly. 


University  of  Cincinnati  Press,  Cincinnati,  Ohio. 

Entered  February  24, 1905,  at  Cincinnati,  Ohio,  as  second-class  matter,  under  Act  of 
Congress  of  July  16, 1894. 


i-J^  -5  SANTA   BAfiBAfU 

<7 


THE  AUTHORITY  OF  LAW  IN  LANGUAGE 

The  endeavor  to  determine  the  authority  of  law  in  language  is 
beset  with  not  a  few  difficulties.  Perhaps  the  first  and  greatest 
of  these  difficulties  lies  in  finding  out  exactly  the  nature  of  law  in 
language.  That  laws  of  language  exist  is,  indeed,  a  general  and 
natural  assumption.  We  are  inclined  to  take  it  for  granted,  in 
language  as  in  everything  else,  that  this  is  an  orderly  and  well 
regulated  universe.  But  the  existence  of  law  of  some  kind  being 
thus  assumed,  the  important  matter  is  the  determination  of  just 
what  meaning  we  shall  give  to  this  term  law  as  it  is  applied  to 
language.  The  subject  is  one  which  from  the  beginnings  of  the 
modern  scientific  study  of  language,  and,  for  that  matter,  from 
the  days  of  Plato,  has  engaged  the  deepest  interest  of  philosophers 
and  philologists.  By  the  technical  linguists  of  modern  times  it 
has  usually  been  approached  from  the  most  obviously  physical 
side  of  language,  from  the  side  of  phonetics.^  Any  general  con- 
ception of  law  in  language,  however,  must  apply  not  only  to  pho- 
netics, but  to  all  the  manifestations  of  language,  to  forms,  to  syn- 
tax, to  everything  which  enters  into  the  composition  of  language. 
It  may  seem  an  ambitious  project  to  attempt  to  discuss  within  the 
brief  compass  of  an  essay  the  varied  significance  of  the  subject 
of  the  authority  of  law  in  these  different  applications.  We  may 
hope  to  find,  however,  that  the  ideas  which  will  have  to  be  con- 
sidered are  of  wider  bearing  than  might  at  first  be  supposed,  and 
that  they  are  at  least  of  sufficiently  general  value  to  justify  an 
examination  of  the  subject  from  so  comprehensive  a  point  of  view. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  bestow  more  than  a  passing  glance 
upon  the  old  notion  of  the  completely  objective  existence  of  lan- 
guage, of  its  creation  and  regulation  by  some  kind  of  law-giver, 
and  of  its  consequent  possession  of  a  native  and  inherent  system 
of  law  which  may  be  dogmatically  applied.  This  old  belief  often 
took  the  form  of  statement  that  language  is  an  organism  as  truly 


1.  See  Wechssler's  essay,  'Giebt  es  Lautgesetze,'  Indogermanische 
Forschungen,  1900.  Wechssler  gives  a  full  bibliography  of  the  subject.  To 
Wechssler's  list  may  be  added  Professor  Henry  Cecil  Wyld's  inaugural 
address,  Law  in  Language,  Liverpool,  1900.  Professor  Wyld  also  limits 
his  discussion  to  phonetic  law. 


3 


as  any  object  of  the  physical  world  is  an  organism;  it  assumed 
that  language  may  be  as  completely  dissociated  from  man  as 
stock  or  stone  may  be.  The  simple  answer  to  all  this  is  that 
language,  unlike  the  stock  or  stone,  has  no  existence  that  we 
are  conscious  of  apart  from  the  activities  of  the  minds  of 
individual,  living,  human  beings.  The  recorded  historical  forms 
of  language  as  we  know  them  in  literature,  in  dictionaries, 
and  in  descriptive  grammars  are,  of  course,  not  language  any 
more  than  the  mummy  of  an  Egyptian  Pharaoh  is  a  man.  The 
language  of  literature  may  be  re-created  in  the  minds  of  liv- 
ing beings,  but  then  it  is  not  the  language  of  the  printed  page 
which  exists,  but  each  reader's  fresh  interpretation  of  that  lan- 
guage which  makes  it  vivid  and  significant  to  the  mind  occupied 
by  it.  In  no  conceivable  way  can  language  be  thought  of  as  an 
external  organism;  it  must  be  regarded  as  a  manifestation  of 
mind,  and  whatever  structure  or  rule  or  law  it  may  have  must  be 
found  in  the  processes  of  living  minds. 

It  is  interesting  to  observe  how  the  comparatively  old  science 
of  philology  has  in  this  respect  attained  a  solid  footing,  whereas 
the  relatively  new  science  of  sociology  is  still  floundering  in  the 
mire  of  the  antiquated  theory  of  the  objective  existence  of  or 
counterpart  to  mental  or  psychological  activities.  In  a  recent  sum- 
mary of  the  present  state  of  sociological  inquiry  Professor  Gid- 
dings^  has  put  side  by  side  the  two  modern  methods  of  sociological 
study.  On  the  one  hand,  he  says,  are  those  who  insist  that  'the 
typical  society,  consisting  of  individuals  both  dwelling  and  work- 
ing together,  is  as  truly  an  organism  as  is  the  animal  or  vegetal 
body  composed  of  cells  and  differentiated  into  mutually  dependent 
tissues  and  organs.'  The  other  point  of  view  is  assumed  by  those 
who  conceive  society  as  a  'superorganic  product,'  and  who  regard 
it  'as  essentially  a  psychological  phenomenon.  They  assume  that 
all  social  bonds,  instead  of  being  merely  physical,  like  the  cohesion 
of  material  cells,  may  be  resolved  into  some  common  activity  or 
interactivity  of  individual  minds.'  Applying  the  same  general 
principles  to  the  study  of  language,  there  can  hardly  be  any  ques- 
tion that  the  second  view  is  right.  Language,  which  is  merely  one 
of  the  manifestations  of  social  grouping,  has  its  real  existence  in 
the  common  activity  or  interactivity  of  individual  minds. 


1.    Giddings,  Sociology,  New  York,  1908,  p.  30. 

4 


It  is  possible  to  evade  the  more  difficult  problems  that  arise  in 
the  consideration  of  law  in  language  and  still  arrive  at  results 
which  must  be  dignified  by  the  name  of  law.  Thus  by  the  simplest 
process  of  observation  similars  may  be  grouped  together.  As  a 
child  playing  with  pebbles  may  put  all  the  white  ones  in  this  heap 
and  all  the  black  ones  in  that,  so  the  student  of  language  may 
group  the  phenomena  of  language  according  to  the  principle  of 
obvious  similarity.  He  may  thus  put  all  of  his  pronouns  follow- 
ing verbs  into  one  class  and  arrive  at  a  statement  of  the  law  for 
that  class — that  a  pronoun  after  the  verb  takes  the  form  of  the 
objective  case.  Such  law  is  merely  descriptive,  and  to  the  his- 
torian or  to  the  philosopher  or  the  psychologist  it  has  in  itself 
little  interest.  Its  function  is  to  lay  out  the  materials  in  orderly 
fashion  with  which  the  explaining  student  is  to  work.  The  method 
followed  is  altogether  external ;  it  groups  phenomena  together 
which  to  the  observation  seem  to  be  similar,  but  which  for  the 
more  curious  inquirer  have  to  be  tested  by  some  deeper  principle 
than  that  of  outer  similarity  before  they  can  be  finally  accepted  as 
a  real  grouping  of  similars.  It  is  only  to  the  practical  student  of 
language  that  such  a  descriptive  method  has  any  value;  for  him 
it  is  not  necessary  to  go  beyond  these  simple  laws  of  observation 
based  upon  apparent  similarity,  and  in  his  practice  the  question  of 
the  authority  of  these  laws  hardly  arises. 

The  deeper  principle  which  is  to  be  added  to  the  observation 
of  externals  in  the  grouping  of  similars  is  the  principle  of  causal 
explanation,  giving  rise  to  causal  laws.  It  should  be  quite  clear 
that  a  causal  statement  of  a  phenomenon  or  a  group  of  phenomena 
is  not  the  same  thing  as  a  description  of  them.  A  description  of 
the  sound  t,  for  example,  would  be  a  statement  of  such  and  such 
an  effect  upon  the  ear.  But  a  causal  explanation  of  the  sound 
must  consider  its  origins,  the  position  of  the  tongue  against  the 
upper  gums,  the  expulsion,  checking,  and  sudden  loosing  of  the 
breath  which  actually  forms  the  sound.  A  causal  law  is  thus  seen 
to  be  a  mechanical  law  in  the  sense  that  it  shows  by  what  processes 
results  are  obtained ;  it  reveals  the  mechanism  of  an  action.  Still 
further  back  of  the  mechanical  causal  law  is,  of  course,  that  kind 
of  law  which  is  designated  as  teleological,  the  law  of  final  cause. 
But  teleological  law  carries  us  over  into  the  region  of  metaphysics, 
and  so  far  we  need  not  at  present  venture.    It  will  be  more  to  our 


present  purpose  to  carry  a  little  further  the  analysis  of  mechanical 
causal  and  descriptive  law. 

A  descriptive  law  is  usually  easier  to  arrive  at  and,  at  the  same 
time,  is  of  less  certain  value  than  a  causal  statement  or  law. 
The  latter  tends  to  be  self-convincing-,  apodeictic.  If  its  facts  are 
right  and  its  methods  are  sound  the  results  are  felt  to  be  neces- 
sary. A  descriptive  generalization,  on  the  other  hand,  is  often 
shown  not  to  be  a  law  by  the  application  of  causal  principles. 
Facts  which  to  the  observation  seem  similar  may  really  be  diverse, 
and  a  descriptive  law  may  cover  the  ground  of  several  causal  laws ; 
in  other  words,  by  the  application  of  causal  explanations  we  often 
give  up  old  and  accept  new  principles  for  the  holding  together  of 
similars.  A  familiar  illustration  of  this  may  be  cited  from  archi- 
tecture. It  is  well  known  that  the  Gothic  style,  in  the  architect's 
system  of  classification,  consists  not  in  the  pointed  arch,  not  even 
in  the  flying  buttress,  for  these  may  be  and  in  fact  often  are 
nothing  more  than  external  and  ornamental  in  their  application. 
But  the  explaining  principle  of  classification,  the  causal  statement 
of  the  quality  of  Gothic  style,  is  to  be  found  in  a  principle  of  con- 
struction often  concealed  to  the  external  observer,  the  principle 
of  push  and  thrust  in  the  support  of  vaulting.  In  language  the 
causal  or  mechanical  principle  must  be  continually  called  into 
service  for  the  sake  of  correcting  the  errors  of  descriptive  general- 
ization. We  know  from  their  explanation  and  origin  that  the  two 
words,  the  verb  hold  and  the  noun  the  hold  of  a  ship  (originally 
the  hole  of  a  ship),  although  they  have  somewhat  similar  or  at 
least  conceivably  related  meanings,  are  not  historically  the  same 
word.  So  also  must  we  explain  by  causal  principles  how  one 
form,  for  example,  English  lean,  meaning  'slender'  and  the  verbal 
idea,  'to  lean,'  or  strain,  meaning  'stock,  race,'  and  'to  strain,'  can 
have  various  meanings.  In  the  same  way  we  must  explain  how 
one  meaning  may  assume  different  forms,  for  example,  regal, 
royal,  real,  and  in  countless  ways  the  mechanical  explanation  is 
called  in  to  supplement  and  correct  external  observation. 

To  the  student  of  to-day  the  meaning  which  is  given  to  the 
conception  of  causal  law  is  very  much  colored  by  the  applications 
of  that  law  in  the  study  of  the  natural  sciences.  Our  first  thought 
at  the  mention  of  the  term  law  is  of  the  mechanical  laws  of  physi- 
cal matter.     It  will  be  well,  therefore,  to  examine  for  a  moment 

6 


the  conception  of  causal  law  from  this  point  of  view  before  we 
attempt  to  test  its  value  and  authority  as  applied  to  language. 

If  we  had  a  causal  law  for  every  phenomenon,  the  natural 
scientists  tell  us,  we  should  have  a  perfectly  clear,  intelligible,  and 
predictable  universe.  This  assertion  and  belief  obviously  imply 
that  a  causal  law  always  operates  in  the  same  way  and  always  has 
the  same  result.  Thus  two  parts  of  hydrogen  added  to  one  part 
of  oxygen  always  produces  water,  and  if  we  can  be  sure  of  any- 
thing, says  the  scientist,  we  can  be  sure  that  the  combination 
always  will  produce  water.  It  is  assumed  that  when  a  different 
result  enters,  the  law  which  has  been  supposed  to  explain  the  facts 
is  not  a  real  law  but  that  more  than  one  law  is  present ;  that  is, 
that  the  grouping  which  was  made  was  only  descriptive  and  needs 
a  further  analysis  into  its  real  and  varied  causal  principles.  In  the 
form  of  a  rule  this  theory  may  be  stated  thus :  like  causes  produce 
like  effects  and  the  same  cause  always  produces  the  same  effect. 
This  is  not  the  place  to  enter  into  any  discussion  of  the  credibility 
of  the  statements  of  this  rule.  They  are  plainly  dogmas,  that  is, 
probabilities  raised  to  the  position  of  general  laws  by  our  strong 
belief  in  them.  They  are  not  susceptible  of  immediate  proof, 
since  we  cannot  prove  such  unqualified  universals.  Disregarding, 
therefore,  the  question  of  the  ultimate  truth  of  these  principles, 
we  shall  find  it  more  profitable  to  consider  in  how  far  this  concep- 
tion of  law  applies  to  language. 

First  of  all  it  should  be  observed  that  language  as  a  concept 
has  none  of  the  definiteness,  of  the  necessity,  and  of  the  firmness 
of  a  natural  substance.  Hydrogen  is  hydrogen  and  water  is  water 
the  world  over.  Language,  to  be  sure,  is  expression ;  but  expres- 
sion is  not  necessarily  vocal — it  may  be  gesture  and  make  its 
appeal  to  the  eye  instead  of  the  ear.  To  define  language  with 
clearly  marked  limits  it  is  necessary  first  to  settle  more  or  less 
arbitrarily  on  the  definition.  Just  when  does  the  babbling  of  a 
child  cease  to  be  mere  babbling  and  become  language?  Are  the 
vocal  utterances  of  animals  ever  to  be  dignified  with  the  name  of 
language?  The  truth  is  that  language  is  not  a  positive  power,  a 
faculty,  a  something  by  virtue  of  the  possession  of  which  man  is 
man.  It  is  rather  adventitious  than  necessary  to  human  life,  and 
in  its  various  manifestations  it  passes  imperceptibly  into  and  par- 
takes of  many  different  aspects  of  life.  It  is  one  of  those  human 
activities  which  the  definiteness  of  our  terminology  sometimes 


leads  us  to  suppose  we  thoroughly  understand,  but  which  seem 
the  vaguer  the  more  we  try  to  make  our  ideas  of  them  solid  and 
distinct. 

If  language  is  not  to  be  thought  of  as  a  human  activity,  sharply 
marked  off  from  every  other  human  activity,  as  a  detachable  unit 
in  the  human  composition,  how  is  it  when  we  come  to  consider  the 
processes  of  language?  Are  they  simple  and  distinct,  and  do  they 
exhibit  such  necessary  and  uniform  mechanical  laws  as  are  to  be 
observed  in  the  natural  world?  To  answer  these  questions  it  will 
be  necessary  to  examine  some  of  the  typical  processes  of  lan- 
guage. For  this  purpose  we  may  take  an  illustration  from  phonetics 
and  another  from  syntax,  the  assimilation  of  consonants  for  the 
one  and  the  rules  or  concord  for  the  other.  Since  sound  is  largely 
physical,  both  on  the  side  of  its  production  and  its  reception,  it 
is  in  the  sounds  of  language  if  anywhere  that  language  laws  might 
be  supposed  to  operate  as  they  do  with  natural  phenomena;  and 
in  the  assimilation  of  consonants  we  have  one  of  the  most  obvi- 
ously physical  set  of  phonetic  phenomena  to  consider  that  language 
offers.  The  simplest  statement  of  this  rule,  or  law,  of  assimi- 
lation is  that  when  two  consonants  of  unlike  kind,  that  is,  a  voiced 
and  a  voiceless  consonant,  come  into  juxtaposition,  one  is  assimi- 
lated to  the  other — the  voiceless  consonant  either  becomes  voiced 
or  the  voiced  consonant  becomes  voiceless.  The  words  race, 
raced  illustrate  one  process,  thief,  thieves  the  other.  But  excep- 
tion must  be  made  of  the  Unguals  and  nasals ;  for  the  purposes 
of  this  law,  they  must  be  regarded  not  as  consonants,  since  pairs 
like  cold,  colt;  rend,  rent;  crammed,  cramped  (the  p  is  merely  ortho- 
graphic and  is  no  more  present  in  sound  than  a  6  is  in  crammed) 
show  that  they  combine  with  equal  ease  with  either  voiced  or 
voiceless  consonants.  This  is  restriction  number  one.  A  second 
limitation  of  the  rule  requires  that  the  consonants  shall  be  in  the 
same  syllable.  Words  like  south-down,  or  hot-bed,  or  foot-ball 
consequently  fall  out  of  the  rule,  although  with  the  consonants  of 
these  words  we  may  observe  more  or  less  tendency  towards 
assimilation.  Another  limitation  must  be  recognized  which  arises 
out  of  the  fact  that  the  division  of  consonants  into  voiced  and 
voiceless  is  not  based  on  an  absolute  difference  of  kind.  It  is  not 
a  difference  of  nature,  but  a  difference  of  degree,  as  is  the  distinc- 
tion between  vowel  and  consonant.  Vowels  shade  over  into  con- 
sonants imperceptibly,  and  voiced  consonants  are  distinguished 

8 


from  voiceless  at.  the  dividing  line  only  by  minute  degrees  of 
difference.  Thus  the  final  consonant  following  a  gutteral  k,  in 
the  combination  of  kd  in  book'd,  is  more  voiced,  or  at  least  is  likely 
to  be  more  voiced,  than  the  final  consonant  of  drop'd. 

It  would  not  be  difficult  to  find  a  physiological  explanation  why 
this  should  be  so,  but  at  present  we  are  merely  concerned  with  the 
fact  that  voiced  and  voiceless  consonants  should  not  be  thought  of 
as  absolute  and  definitely  different  in  their  values,  like  two  phys- 
ical elements,  but  merely  as  stages  in  an  unbroken  sequence. 
Finally,  not  to  delay  too  long  over  our  list  of  restrictions,  which 
indeed  might  be  increased  almost  indefinitely,  the  law  of  assimi- 
lation can  operate  only  when  there  is  no  positive  intention  on  the 
part  of  the  speaker  to  prevent  it.  Thus  if  the  speaker  wills  to  do 
so,  for  any  reason  whatsoever,  he  may  pronounce  the  final  d  of 
drop'd  as  a  voiced  sound,  and  so  with  any  other  consonant  in  any 
possible  combination.  There  is  nothing  essentially  impossible  in 
the  combination  of  a  voiced  and  voiceless  consonant,  and  any 
speaker  may  at  any  moment  produce  such  a  combination.  Eng- 
lish poetry  is  full  of  illustrations,  of  which  one  from  Richard  III, 
V,  III,  119,  will  suffice: 

"Think,  how  thou  stabb'dst  me  in  my  prime  of  youth." 
Manifestly  all  these  restrictions  suppose  a  kind  of  activity  very 
different  from  the  way  in  which  the  phenomena  of  the  natural 
world  act.  The  two  parts  of  hydrogen  and  the  one  of  oxygen 
which  unite  to  form  water  are,  in  the  first  place,  quite  separate 
and  distinct  from  each  other;  they  are  not  supposed  to  be  joined 
by  gradual  connecting  links,  but  each  exists  for  and  by  itself. 
Moreover,  when  they  are  combined  they  not  only  show  a  tend- 
ency of  development,  but  they  show  a  certain  and  positive  devel-- 
opment.  There  is  nothing  inherent  in  them  separately  or  in  their 
result  when  combined  which  is  able  to  change  or  prevent  their 
action.  On  the  other  hand,  in  every  phonetic  development  there 
is  something  inherent  in  the  processes  of  language  which  enters 
to  assist,  to  retard,  or  even  prevent  a  probable  phonetic  develop- 
ment. From  the  very  nature  of  language  it  is  consequently  im- 
possible to  speak  of  phonetic  laws  with  the  same  meaning  that  we 
give  to  natural  physical  law.  In  phonetics  we  have  always  a 
tendency  of  development  or  change,  conditioned  by  a  multitude  of 
helping  or  restraining  tendencies  which  bring  about  an  infinity  of 
degrees  in  the  phonetic  process ;    in  the  physical  world  when  a 

9 


change  takes  place  it  is  definitely  ponderable,  measurable,  limit- 
able  in  some  way,  its  results  are  clear  and  certain,  and  the  whole 
is  capable  of  reduction  to  the  form  of  an  exact  law,  not  merely  the 
statement  of  a  probable  tendency. 

If  we  find  that  phonetic  processes,  which  of  all  the  activities 
of  language  afford  the  closest  parallel  to  natural,  physical  activi- 
ties, cannot  be  explained  by  the  same  kind  of  law  that  the  physicist 
uses  to  explain  natural  phenomena,  still  less  should  we  expect  the 
other  and  more  psychological  activities  of  language  to  be  explain- 
able by  that  kind  of  law.  The  forms  of  syntax,  the  colors  and 
developments  in  meaning  of  words,  the  cadences  and  tunes  of 
speech,  all  these  are  language  processes  which  are  subject  to  some 
kind  of  law  or  cause,  but  plainly  not  to  a  fixed  and  necessary  causal 
law  like  that  we  have  been  discussing.  For  illustration  we  may 
take  the  syntactical  law  that  a  verb  agrees  with  its  subject  in  per- 
son and  number.  First  of  all  this  law  can  have  application  only 
to  an  inflectional  language,  like  the  members  of  the  Indo-Germanic 
family  of  languages.  In  an  isolative  language  like  Chinese,  where 
there  is  no  formal  concord,  the  law  could  have  no  meaning.  In 
an  inflectional  language,  however,  it  supposes  that  when  a  subject 
is  plural  number  or  singular  number,  first,  second,  or  third  person, 
the  verb  will  have  a  distinctive  form  and  feeling  corresponding 
respectively  to  these  different  categories  of  the  subject.  When  we 
come  to  apply  the  law  to  any  language,  or  any  period  of  a  lan- 
guage, we  find  that  practically  the  law  is  again  nothing  more  than 
the  statement  of  a  general  tendency,  that  this  general  tendency  is 
interrupted  at  various  points  often  to  such  an  extent  as  to  destroy 
the  general  value  of  the  law.  In  modern  English,  for  example, 
the  feeling  for  personal  concord  between  verb  and  subject  is  almost 
.  completely  lost.  In  the  past  tense  of  all  verbs  it  is  altogether 
lacking,  and  in  the  modal  auxiliaries  also  for  the  present.  A 
singular  verb  may  be  used  with  plural  subject,  as  in  the  sentence. 
More  than  one  man  has  crossed  Brooklyn  Bridge,  where  the  logical 
force  of  the  subject  is  certainly  plural,  and  a  singular  subject  may 
be  used  with  plural  verb,  as  in  You  were  not  the  man,  where  the 
logical  force  of  the  subject  is  certainly  singular.  To  call  these  ex- 
ceptions to  the  law,  or  to  explain  them  by  subtle  logical  distinctions 
not  present  in  the  normal  linguistic  consciousness  is,  of  course,  beg- 
ging the  question.  The  real  fact  seems  to  be  that,  although  often 
we  do  have  a  feeling  for  concord  in  number  between  subject  and 
verb,  at  times  this  feeling  is  in  abeyance.    The  general  tendency 

10 


or  law  is  temporarily  suspended  and  the  test  or  requirement  or 
convention,  whatever  you  wish  to  call  it,  of  concord  is  not  applied. 
Every  grammatical  category  will  be  found  on  analysis  to  fray  off 
at  its  edges  into  such  ambiguities  and  uncertainties  of  classifica- 
tion. What  we  call  law  or  rule  is  merely  a  convenient  but  strictly 
unjustifiable  descriptive  generalization  covering  only  a  part  of 
the  facts.  To  give  it  any  other  than  this  inexact  meaning  is  to 
proceed  from  a  priori  theory,  and  not  from  the  ground  of  actual 
practice. 

We  must  add  something,  therefore,  to  our  conception  of  the 
causal  mechanical  laws  of  language.  The  great  difference  be- 
tween language  and  the  natural  world  which  makes  the  principle 
of  causal  explanation  of  differing  value  as  applied  to  the  two,  is 
the  necessary  presence  of  something  in  the  former  which  is  never 
present  in  the  latter.  In  language  the  elements  of  mind  and  voli- 
tion always  enter;  in  the  natural  world,  so  far  as  we  can  see  at 
present,  they  never  enter.  Perhaps  mutation  as  it  is  at  present  stu- 
died in  plant  life  is  to  be  explained  on  the  basis  of  the  presence  of 
some  kind  of  mind  or  will  in  matter.  Perhaps  an  exceptionally 
endowed  plant  may  be  able  to  determine  for  itself  that  it  will  not 
be  like  its  fellows,  but  will  be  something  different.  Perhaps  also 
a  very  exceptionally  endowed  atom  of  oxygen  may,  conceivably 
in  the  future  if  it  never  has  done  so  in  the  past,  decide  that  it  will 
combine  with  two  elements  of  hydrogen,  not  to  produce  water, 
but  something  new  and  unknown  to  gods  or  men.  Whether  this 
is  probable  or  not  in  the  physical  world,  we  know  it  is  true  in  the 
mental.  Volition  is  constantly  bringing  about  mutation  in  lan- 
guage. Not  every  process  produces  something  new  and  striking, 
for  the  will  may  act  merely  as  repetition  in  the  formation  of  habit, 
and  of  speech  habits  more  will  be  said  later.  But  the  im- 
portant thing  to  remember  is  that  at  any  moment  the  volitional 
process  may  produce  something  new.  At  any  moment  we  may 
have  a  language  "sport",  a  language  creation,  which  may  run 
counter  to  all  other  volitional  acts  in  its  group.  It  is  for  this 
reason  that  we  cannot  speak  of  causal  law  as  applied  to  language 
in  the  same  way  as  we  speak  of  causal  law  as  applied  to  the  natural 
world.  All  normal  language  processes  are  volitional  processes, 
and  the  question  of  uniformity,  or  regularity,  in  language  is  con- 
sequently not  a  question  of  necessary  results  from  similar  causes, 
but  a  question  why  volitional  acts  should  be  repeated  in  individuals 

11 


and  in  groups  of  individuals.  The  extent  of  the  voHtional  charac- 
ter of  languas^e  may  be  seen  from  the  possibility  of  complete  in- 
hibition. This  is  not  conceivable  in  the  physical  world.  Gold  must 
glitter  and  the  diamond  must  shine.  But  in  language  a  cause  may 
be  without  an  effect.  There  may  be  no  expression  even  in  the  pre- 
sence of  the  strongest  incentive  to  expression.  The  will  may 
annihilate  what  it  can  create,  but  the  natural  world  has  no  choice 
but  to  obey  the  conditions  of  its  existence. 

To  cite  even  a  small  part  of  the  many  ways  in  which  uniform- 
ity of  tendency,  or  regularity,  or  repetition,  or  law,  in  this  sense,  is 
brought  about  in  the  volitional  processes  of  language  would  be 
manifestly  impossible  within  the  brief  limits  of  this  paper.  Only 
a  few  can  be  mentioned  in  order  to  illustrate  the  nature  of  law  in 
language  and  to  furnish  the  basis  for  some  reflections  on  the 
proper  attitude  towards  such  law.  First  of  all,  however,  it  will 
be  necessary  to  discuss  briefly  the  way  in  which  volition  first  enters 
into  language  and  the  way  in  which  conscious  volitional  acts  pass 
over  into  unconscious  habitual  acts. 

The  psychologists  are  accustomed  to  make  a  distinction  be- 
tween what  they  call  ideomotor  activities  and  volitional  activities. 
By  ideomotor  activities  they  mean  such  as  are  produced  without 
choice  or  intention ;  such  activities  are  merely  the  unwilled  expres- 
sion of  an  image  on  the  brain — for  example,  somebody  yawns  and 
everybody  else  within  seeing  distance  unconsciously  does  the 
same.  Image  actions  of  this  sort  were  probably  very  important 
factors  in  the  primitive  development  of  language.  The  primitive 
speaker  heard  a  sound  and,  without  meaning  anything  by  it,  he 
unwittingly  imitated  that  sound.  It  is  in  this  way  partly  that  a 
child  is  still  taught  to  speak.  The  parent  repeats  a  word,  say 
Dada,  some  dozen  or  twenty  or  fifty  times,  until  the  image  of  that 
word  is  definitely  fixed  in  the  child's  mind,  when  by  this  tendency 
to  ideomotor  activity  the  child  utters  the  word.  The  proud  parent 
is  immediately  entranced  because  his  child  has  spoken.  But  has  he 
spoken?  Is  the  mere  unwilled  expression  of  a  motor  impulse 
speech?  No,  for  there  must  still  be  added  something  else  on  the 
child's  part ;  there  must  be  added  choice,  will,  intention.  The  child 
must  design  to  convey  a  significance  by  means  of  his  word,  and 
only  when  he  does  so  are  all  the  elements  of  a  linguistic  process 
present.     After  that  at  any  moment  the  volitional  process  may 

12 


become  expressive,  may  become  something  which  is  not  merely 
the  reflection  of  a  mental  image. 

Habit  in  language  operates  much  as  it  does  in  other  human 
activities.  The  effects  of  habit  in  many  actions  are  quite  familiar 
to  us.  The  piano  player  through  long  years  of  practice  is  enabled 
to  perform  feats  of  rapid  action  with  his  fingers  which  at 
the  beginning  he  could  hardly  imagine.  As  he  grows  in 
skill  he  not  only  performs  these  feats  with  physical  ease,  but  he 
performs  them  without  any  effort  of  will.  His  fingers  seem  to 
move,  to  play,  of  themselves.  And  so  with  many  other  activities. 
Constant  drill  and  practice  does  away  with  the  necessity  of  giving 
thought  to  the  method  of  an  activity.  The  skillful  marksman  does 
not  need  to  stop  and  take  aim,  he  fires  and  hits  the  mark  immedi- 
ately, almost  by  instinct  as  we  say.  Now  there  is  perhaps  no 
human  activity  in  which  we  are  so  constantly  and  perfectly  drilled 
as  in  the  activities  of  speech.  Before  the  child  begins  to  walk  he 
exercises  his  tongue  and  the  other  vocal  muscles  in  the  formation 
of  speech-sounds.  And  from  the  days  of  infancy  to  his  last  hours 
the  speaking  being  is  engaged  in  drilling  himself  in  the  art  of 
speech.  The  result  is  that  all  speech  activities  tend  to  become  highly 
developed  and  stable  habits.  Most  speakers  are,  of  course,  ex- 
tremely conventional  in  the  set  of  speech-habits  which  they  acquire, 
Our  human  race  has  lived  so  long,  the  usual  and  normal  experien- 
ces of  life  have  occurred  so  frequently,  that  in  the  course  of  time 
everybody  acquires  forms  of  speech  expressive  of  those  constantly 
recurring  experiences.  Thus  when  I  meet  my  neighbor  coming 
out  of  his  gate  in  the  morning,  I  say  Hoiv  do  yon  do?  or  Good- 
morning.  I  do  this  without  the  slightest  effort ;  the  words  fall  as 
glibly  and  easily  from  my  tongue  as  the  notes  do  from  the  fingers 
of  the  skillful  pianist.  A  great  part  of  our  speech,  more  perhaps 
than  we  suppose,  is  made  up  of  just  such  habitual,  colorless  ex- 
pression. Speech  of  this  kind  closely  resembles  those  ideomotor 
activities  just  mentioned.  When  I  see  my  neighbor  coming  out  of 
his  gate  a  part  of  the  image  in  my  mind  is  a  greeting,  and  so  the 
greeting  involuntarily  slips  out  in  order  that  the  picture  may  be 
complete.  For  most  of  the  occasions  of  daily  life  we  have  just 
such  habitual,  Ideomotor  expressions,  consecrated  by  long  use,  but 
in  themselves  almost  but  never  completely  lacking  in  personal 
color  or  intention  on  the  part  of  the  speaker.  I  need  hardly  call 
attention  to  the  fact  that  in  the  minds  of  most  men  there  is  a  deep- 

13 


rooted  hostility  towards  any  departure  from  these  fixed  habits. 
That  which  is  famihar  seems  good  and  right,  and  rational  argu- 
ments stand  little  show  when  they  come  in  conflict  with  ancient 
and  established  custom.  But  the  important  matter  to  note  for  pres- 
ent purposes  is  that  no  habitual  speech-activity  could  have  been  in 
the  beginning  a  habit.  It  must  have  become  such  by  repetition,  just 
as  the  pianist's  unconscious  dexterity  must  have  been  acquired  by 
slow  and  painful  individual  acts  of  his  will.  The  first  person  who 
said  Good-morning  to  his  neighbor  must  have  meant  something  by 
it,  and  the  second  and  the  third,  and  all  succeeding  persons  who 
used  the  phrase  before  it  became  a  mechanical  conventional  habit. 
In  their  origins,  therefore,  all  language  expressions  were  intended 
to  convey  meaning,  and  if  they  were  intended  to  convey  meaning, 
then  they  were  volitional  activities.  For  us  today,  who  are 
enriched,  or  burdened,  as  you  please,  with  a  great  inherited  gift 
of  conventional  expression,  it  is  necessary  to  add  to  or  depart 
from,  in  some  way  to  vary  the  stock  of  habitual  expression,  if  we 
wish  to  be  positively  expressive.  In  other  words,  positive  expres- 
sion is  as  much  today  a  matter  of  intention,  of  free  volition  as  it 
ever  was.  We  differ  from  the  primitive  speaker  only  in  this, 
that  we  have  at  our  disposal  a  greater  supply  of  negative  weak- 
ened habitual  expressions  which  relieves  us  from  the  absolute 
necessity  of  exerting  our  wills  if  we  wish  to  be  lazy,  and  that  in 
order  to  be  positively  expressive  we  must  rise  superior  to  the  vast 
network  of  habit  which  more  and  more  tends  to  entangle,  even  to 
strangle  our  own  free,  individual  activity. 

In  its  simplest  forms  the  volitional  choice  of  the  material  of 
language  is  doubtless  largely  determined  by  physical  facts.  The 
choice  of  the  voice  as  the  medium  of  expression  rather  than 
gesture  is  due  to  the  greater  economy  and  effectiveness  of  vocal 
expression  as  compared  with  all  other  kinds  of  expression.  In 
the  same  way  the  selection  of  the  specific  sounds  which  go  to 
make  up  a  language  is  probably  to  some  extent  determined  by  con- 
venience, or,  in  the  old  phrase,  "ease  of  utterance."  This  is  a 
principle  or  law  which  is  of  undoubted  validity  in  assisting  in  the 
explanation  of  some  developments,  especially  phonetic  develop- 
ments, like  the  assimilation  of  consonants,  mutation  or  umlaut, 
and  a  few  others  in  which  the  physical  side  of  language  is  promi- 
nent. But  mental  suggestion  is  certainly  an  important  factor  in 
these  changes,  and  it  would  be  easy  to  exaggerate  the  principle 

14 


of  physiological  economy  or  ease  in  the  explanation  of  language 
changes.  In  umlaut,  for  example,  the  theory  of  physiological  ease 
is  quite  inadequate  as  an  explanation  of  the  change.  Here,  as 
ever,  we  have  to  do  with  mental  activities,  and  these  may  at  any 
moment  rise  superior  to  any  of  the  so-called  natural,  physiological 
necessities. 

The  widest  degree  of  volitional  uniformity  is  brought  about 
by  the  necessity  of  the  symbolic  value  of  language.  Vocal  sounds 
in  truly  primitive  conditions  of  human  life  were  largely  individu- 
ally expressive.  Whatever  uniformity  they  may  have  had  was  the 
result  of  uniform  physical  conditions,  mainly  the  similarity  of  the 
organs  of  voice  and  of  the  environment  surrounding  the  speaking 
animals.  As  such,  vocal  sound  was  not  yet  specifically  language. 
Language  is  a  different  species  of  vocal  sound,  to  use  the  termi- 
nology of  the  natural  sciences,  formed  by  the  addition  of  a  new 
element — that  is,  the  symbolic  value  of  uttered  sound.  This  im- 
posing of  symbolic  value  upon  speech  sounds  is  a  volitional  process 
and  at  the  same  time  a  segregating  and  generalizing  process. 
From  the  vast  number  of  possible  sounds  and  combinations  of 
sounds  some  certain  few  are  selected  by  a  speech  community  for 
its  purposes  of  speech  communication.  The  precise  selection 
which  it  makes  is  apparently  not  determined  by  any  necessity  but 
seems  to  be  free  act  of  will.  Speech  communities  closely  related 
geographically  and  ethnologically  often  choose  different  speech 
elements.  Each  has  the  power  of  the  speech  elements  of  the  other, 
but  through  differing  initial  acts  of  choice,  confirmed  by  the 
repetition  of  the  general  community  through  imitation  in  the  for- 
mation of  community  speech  habits,  differing  sets  of  symbols  be- 
come established.  The  conditions  determining  selection  are  there- 
fore not  single  and  simple,  but  various  and  complex.  Within  a 
group  the  prime  necessity  for  similar  choice  arises  from  the  desire 
of  intelligibility.  If  an  idea  is  to  be  expressed  symbolically  by 
two  or  more  persons  they  must  first  of  all  agree  as  to  the  value 
of  the  symbols.  The  degree  of  such  common  understanding  in 
language  is  extraordinarily  great.  The  majority  of  the  speech 
symbols  of  a  language  have  an  understood  and  fairly  defined 
value.  There  is,  of  course,  no  such  thing  as  a  completely  homo- 
geneous speech  community;  the  common  understanding  of  the 
value  of  speech  symbols  is  never  more  than  approximate  and  prac- 
tical.   Yet  the  body  of  these  understood  speech  symbols  is  so  great 

15 


and  the  feeling  for  them  is  so  certain  that  we  do  not  usually  think 
of  them  as  the  laws  of  the  language,  as  they  of  course  are.  The 
question  of  law  usually  arises  when  attention  is  called  to  an  ac- 
cepted symbolic  value  by  a  departure  from  it.  It  is  from  this 
latter  point  of  view  that  the  practical  student  is  most  concerned 
with  the  question  of  law  in  language.  The  philosophic  student 
would,  however,  explain  all  laws.  He  would  explain  not  only  the 
exceptions,  the  laws  that  account  for  smaller  groups  in  the  large 
groups,  but  also  the  large  groups  themselves.  He  would  explain 
not  only  why  the  third  singular  ends  in  .?  in  Modern  English,  but 
also  why  the  Indo-Germanic  languages  are  inflected  and  others 
are  not.  He  would  explain  not  only  how  Old  English  cild  be- 
comes Modern  English  child,  but  also  how  and  why  all  sound- 
changes  have  taken  place.  He  would  explain  how  words  have 
acquired  the  functional  values  which  we  designate  the  parts  of 
speech,  how  they  have  acquired  the  complicated  and  subtle  sig- 
nificances which  we  give  them,  how  they  are  united  into  the  group- 
ings and  cadences  of  speech.  The  mere  suggestion  of  some  of 
the  vast  problems  called  up  by  the  thought  of  explaining  all 
the  integrating  volitional  processes  of  past  periods  in  language 
shows  the  impossibility  of  doing  so.  We  can  pick  out  a  little  point 
here  and  there  and  form  more  or  less  satisfactory  theories  about 
it;  but  we  can  no  more  reconstruct  the  past  life  of  a  language 
than  we  can  reconstruct  the  past  life  of  a  people's  general  political 
and  social  beliefs  and  customs,  or  the  life  of  an  individual.  The 
remoter  the  life  one  attempts  to  reconstruct  the  less  certain  the 
results  are  bound  to  be.  All  attempts  at  such  historical  interpre- 
tation must  necessarily  be  hypothetical,  theoretical,  inferential. 
They  can  never  become  certain  because  the  conditions  cannot  be 
repeated  as  in  the  case  of  physical  experiment.  If  social  acts,  as 
we  have  assumed,  are  dependent  only  on  the  volitional  impulses 
of  individuals,  allowance  must  necessarily  always  be  made  for 
these  individual  impulses.  But  if  there  is  one  thing  of  which  we 
cannot  speak  with  certainty,  it  is  as  to  what  is  taking  place  or  has 
taken  place  behind  the  brow  of  our  neighbor,  especially  of  our 
long  dead  neighbor,  and  this  is  a  lack  of  certainty  that  must  always 
infect  the  interpretations  of  the  so-called  historical  and  social 
sciences. 

For  the  student  of  the  processes  of  language  a  much  more 
practical  and  fruitful  field  of  observation  and  speculation  lies  in 

16 


present  use,  both  individual  and  community.  It  would  be  an 
interesting  effort  to  describe  down  to  the  minutest  detail  the 
actual  speech  conditions  of  an  individual,  or  better,  of  a  closely 
related  group,  in  order  to  show  by  just  what  acts  each  speaker 
determines  his  characteristics.  When  it  conies  to  the  examination 
of  community  habit,  in  spite  of  great  similarity  as  the  result  of 
imitation  and  that  pressure  towards  conformity  which  the  social 
group  always  brings,  it  would  certainly  be  found  that  complete 
homogeneity  did  not  exist  in  any  community.  Perfect  homo- 
geneity implies  identity  in  the  value  of  all  speech  symbols  of 
the  persons  in  the  community.  In  such  a  community  misunder- 
standing would  not  need  to  be  guarded  against  because  it  could 
never  occur.  Perfect  similarity  of  intention  would  always  be 
followed  by  perfect  similarity  of  result.  But  a  community  of  this 
kind  exists  only  as  an  ideal  abstraction.  We  cannot  conceive  of 
a  body  of  people  detached  and  self-containing  without  differentia- 
tion of  group  and  group,  or  individual  and  individual.  We  may 
imagine  a  small  tribe  shut  up  in  a  valley  for  a  long  period  of  time 
and  cut  off  from  all  communication  with  the  outer  world  as  com- 
ing nearest  to  it.  But  actually  such  tribes  are  not  known.  There 
is  always  differentiation.  Even  the  most  secluded  mountain 
valley,  the  loneliest  island  in  the  South  Seas,  has  its  pastor  or 
priest,  its  head-man,  and  its  distinctions  of  caste  of  some  sort. 
Even  the  variety  of  its  trades  and  occupations  necessitates  variety 
in  the  characteristics  of  speech  of  its  inhabitants.  Homogeneity 
is  always  only  approximate.  Since  will  is  always  present  the  law 
of  imitation,  the  tendency  toward  social  congruity,  can  never 
become  absolute  until  individuality  disappears.  Complete  homo- 
geneity is  therefore  an  assumption,  an  ideal  and  subjective  cre- 
ation, which  in  reality  has  only  its  suggestion  in  the  tendency  of 
the  facts.  Heterogeneity,  on  the  other  hand,  is  necessary,  and  it  is 
possible  for  it  to  exist  without  injury  to  language  by  the  rule  of 
negligible  variation.  No  speech-community  has  ever  demanded 
perfect  homogeniety,  since  it  is  not  necessary  for  the  purposes  of 
satisfactory,  intelligible  communication.  Communication  is 
largely  through  the  imagination.  All  that  is  absolutely  required 
is  some  indication  of  the  intention  of  the  communicating  person, 
and  then  the  recipient  willingly  fills  in  the  content  of  the  communi- 
cation. Assuming,  therefore,  that  homogeneity  tending  towards 
the  formation  of  community  habits  is  the  trend  or  tendency  of 

17 


development  in  speech,  conditioned  by  its  symbolic  value,  although 
in  its  completeness  it  can  never  be  realized,  it  may  be  of  interest 
to  point  out  a  few  of  the  ways  in  which  homogeneity  is  prevented 
in  the  practical  use  of  language : 

(1)  We  may  have,  first  of  all,  partial  survivals  of  earlier 
habitual  uses.  The  general  tendency  in  a  community  may  have 
changed,  but  former  uses  of  the  same  community  may  persist  here 
and  there.  Instances  of  this  are  very  numerous  in  the  history  of 
language.  The  present  popular  pronunciation  of  recognise  as 
rekonise,  without  the  g,  was  formerly  general,  but  it  is  now  giving 
away  or,  perhaps  we  should  say,  has  given  away,  under  the  influ- 
ence of  orthography,  to  a  new  general  tendency.  In  the  condition 
contrary  to  fact,  e.  g.,  If  I  zvere  you,  the  old  general  habit, 
persists  pretty  strongly,  but  beside  it  a  new  one  is  arising,  //  / 
contrary  to  fact,  c.  g.,  If  I  were  you,  the  old  general  habit 
There  is  an  old  fashioned  pronunciation  of  the  word  deaf  with 
same  quality  of  vowel  as  have  the  words  sheaf,  sheep,  leap,  etc. 
Historically  the  vowels  of  deaf  and  leap  are  of  the  same  origin. 
and  formerly  the  pronunciation  of  deaf  like  sheaf  was  not  only 
historically  correct  but  was  also  customary  good  use. 

(2)  We  may  have  mixed  speech  due  to  the  combination  of 
members  of  differing  geographical  or  social  speech  communities, 
and  consequently  of  different  speech  habits,  into  one  community. 
The  new  members  for  some  time  will  not  be  completely  assimi- 
lated. The  degree  of  difference  varies  in  extent  from  the  speech 
of  the  recognized  foreigner  who  speaks  the  language  with  an 
accent,  as  we  say,  and  who  uses  unidiomatic  syntax,  to  the  speech 
of  a  person  whose  outer  origin  can  be  inferred  only  from  an  occa- 
sional dialectal  word  or  pronunciation,  as  for  example,  an  Ameri- 
canized Englishman  who  should  continue  to  speak  of  luggage, 
the  New  Englander  who  should  speak  of  his  shoes  as  his  boots, 
or  the  cultivated  speaker  who  should  retain  popular  pronunciations 
such  as  futher  for  further,  idear  for  idea,  etc. 

(3)  Differences  of  tendency  may  arise  also  from  a  number  of 
causes  much  more  personal  and  individual  in  character.  In  pro- 
nunciation, for  example,  we  have  within  a  group  widely  varying 
degrees  of  energy  in  enunciation.  The  physical  organisms  of 
some  speakers  are  keenly  sensitive  to  the  auditory  side  of  speech 
and  their  minds  act  in  accordance.  They  hear  and  feel  sounds 
sharply  and  distinctly  and  consequently  exert  themselves  to  pro- 

18 


duce  them  sharply  and  distinctly.  Others,  on  the  contrary,  hear 
vaguely  and  indistinctly ;  their  speech  tunes  are  always  a  little 
sharp  or  flat  or  a  little  blurred.  This  difference  of  energy  in 
enunciation  is  not  necessarily  appreciated  as  a  mark  of  different 
speech  grouping.  It  is  characteristic  of  speakers  who,  in  the 
common  social  understanding,  belong  to  the  same  group.  The 
speech  of  any  given  community  is  energetic  in  varying  degrees. 
Thus  a  word  like  very  has  many  different  pronunciations,  clearly 
distinguishable  to  the  ear  but  difficult  of  representation  in  spelling. 
They  range  all  the  way  from  a  tense,  energetic  pronunciation 
almost  the  same  as  vary  to  a  vague  and  loose  vurry.  The  differ- 
ence is  largely  dependent  on  personality — at  least  on  that  side  of 
personality  which  has  to  do  with  response  to  auditory  impressions. 
The  speaker  of  dull  auditory  sensibility  tends  towards  such  pro- 
nunciations as  Satday,  Hosophy,  errs  (errors),  etc.,  where  the 
speaker  of  keen  auditory  sense  tends  toward  a  clear-cut  and  pre- 
cise manner  of  enunciation. 

(4)  Still  more  personal  is  the  variety  of  ideal  impulse  which 
may  color  language.  This  is  a  matter  of  quite  conscious  intent 
and  striving.  Conscious  ideals  in  language  are  a  mark  of  sophis- 
ticated rather  than  natural  use,  but  the  degree  of  conscious  reflec- 
tion in  language  is  surprisingly  great.  It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose 
that  only  the  so-called  educated  and  cultivated  speakers  indulge 
in  conscious  theorizing  in  speech;  the  popular  mind  is  just  as 
sophisticated,  as  full  of  ideas  and  notions  about  language  as  the 
educated  mind  is  of  opinions  and  facts.  The  origin  of  these  con- 
scious reflections  is  various.  They  may  arise  from  the  sense  of 
respect  for  the  authority  of  another  person  or  of  another  group, 
the  social  activities  of  which  as  a  whole  are  admired — for  example, 
the  supposedly  elegant  pronunciation  of  either,  tieither,  rhyming 
with  blither;  or  the  broad  a  in  tornatoes,  branches,  dance, 
etc.  Or  the  authority  of  conventional  spelling  may  be  raised  to 
the  position  of  conscious  authority  — e.  g.  good  deal  instead  of 
good  eal,  Magdalen  instead  of  Maudlin.  The  pronunciation  cited 
above,  rekonize,  had  to  give  way  to  a  conscious  spelling  pronun- 
ciation in  recognize;  in  recognisance  the  theory  has  not  yet 
operated.  In  poignant  for  poinant  the  same  principle  is  illus- 
trated. Or  again,  the  authority  of  history  or  of  supposed  history 
or  of  literary  use  may  be  called  in  as  a  guide  to  conscious  use. 
The  American  defends  the  use  of  guess  by  the  authority  of 

19 


Chaucer,  satisfying  thus  the  craving  for  the  ideal.  In  Hke  manner 
an  appeal  is  made  to  the  authority  of  etymolog>'  to  justify  diver- 
gences from  the  common  custom.  The  etymological  theorist  will 
not  say  sympathy  for,  because  the  word  sympathy  has  for  its  first 
element  a  preposition  which  demands,  in  his  eyes,  the  English  pre- 
position zi'ith.  On  the  basis  of  etymology  he  refuses  also  to  fol- 
low the  general  custom  in  the  use  of  words  like  aggravate,  in  the 
sense  of  annoy,  or  oblivious,  in  the  sense  of  unobservant ;  or  to 
use  a  past  participle  like  soddened. 

(5)  Variety  of  associative  grouping  in  different  minds  also 
begets  variety  in  the  habits  of  language.  A  perfect  and  a  com- 
pletely diffused  understanding  of  language  on  the  side  of  its 
symbolic  value  would  prevent  difference  of  associative  grouping. 
As  it  is,  however,  we  do  not  find  such  rigidity  of  system  in  lan- 
guage. We  do  find,  on  the  other  hand,  inconsequent  and  imperfect 
association  groups  with  more  or  less  fluctuation  between  the 
groups.  Thus  the  speaker  who  says  God  (the  vowel  like  that  of 
father)  may  not  use  the  same  vowel  in  dog,  but  the  broad  vowel 
of  pshaw;  on  the  other  hand,  one  who  pronounces  dog  with  the 
vowel  of  father  is  quite  likely  to  use  the  vowel  of  pshaw  in  God. 
The  same  speaker  may  use  the  pronunciation  hoof  with  the  vowel 
of  good,  roof  with  the  vowel  of  school,  or  may  reverse  them  and 
pronounce  roof  like  good,  and  hoof  like  school.  Stock  examples 
in  syntax  are  the  use  of  shall  and  will.  The  logical  intent  of  all 
persons  in  the  expression  of  thought  by  the  means  of  these  aux- 
iliaries is  the  same.  The  difference  in  use  arises  from  the  differ- 
ence in  the  associations  which  have  gathered  around  the  words. 
So  also  in  the  use  of  like  as  conjunction  and  than  as  preposition. 

(6)  When  this  difference  of  associational  grouping  becomes 
a  little  more  positive  it  constitutes  a  difference  of  logical  appeal. 
Certain  variations  due  to  the  variety  of  logical  appeal  are  freely 
accepted  into  community  use,  as  are  many  of  those  due  to  differ- 
ing associational  grouping.  Thus  collective  nouns  may  take  a 
singular  or  a  plural  verb;  or  a  subject  like  The  king  with  all  his 
men  may  be  followed  by  a  singular  or  a  plural  verb ;  or  kind  may 
be  preceded  by  a  plural  or  a  singular  demonstrative  adjective. 

(7)  A  final  source  of  heterogeneity  in  language  is  the  variety 
of  connotative  suggestion  which  the  forms  of  speech  may  have. 
This  is^  of  course,  an  extremely  personal  matter.  All  sorts  of 
antipathies  and  likings  arise  out  of  different  personal  experiences 

20 


and  associations.  Another  person's  admirations  and  aversions 
are  difficult  to  understand,  and  indeed  in  most  instances,  not  being 
based  upon  reason,  they  are  impossible  to  understand.  Some 
time  ago  a  crusade  of  newspaper  correspondents  was  directed 
against  the  harmless  phrase  All  right.  Some  of  the  participants 
managed  to  work  themselves  into  a  frenzy  of  disgust,  scorn,  and 
loathing  for  this  locution.  They  called  it  common,  vulgar,  over- 
worked, meaningless,  and  all  the  other  hard  names  they  could 
think  of.  Their  objections  were  none  of  them  such  as  one  not 
bitten  with  the  same  madness  could  understand ;  but  for  them- 
selves they  were  sufficient  and  final.  Since  one  must  be  personal 
here,  the  writer  may  be  pardoned  for  citing  a  few  of  his  own  pet 
antipathies.  The  word  trip,  meaning  vacation  or  journey,  sug- 
gests unpleasant  things,  such  as  the  August  crowd  at  Atlantic 
City,  and  at  the  expense  often  of  some  effort  the  writer  avoids 
using  it.  Likewise  viezv-point,  in  spite  of  the  example  of  stand- 
point, which  is  accepted,  or  of  the  similar  compounds  makeshift, 
breakwater,  turnkey,  etc.,  for  some  reason  or  other  suggests  to 
the  writer  everything  that  is  linguistically  cheap  and  tawdry. 
They  are  natural  and  reasonable  words,  but  the  logical  defense 
carries  no  weight.  Other  similar  antipathies  are  the  words  retire, 
meaning  to  go  to  bed;  presume,  meaning  to  suppose;  partial, 
meaning  fond  of,  as  in  /  am  quite  partial  to  peas.. 

In  all  questions  of  law  a  matter  of  prime  practical  interest  and 
importance  is  that  of  proper  attitude  toward  law,  of  the  kind  of 
authority  which  the  law  should  have,  and  the  kind  of  obedience  it 
may  exact  from  those  who  are  subject  to  it.  First  of  all,  it  is  plain 
that  law  in  language  as  we  have  found  it,  that  is,  a  trend  or  tend- 
ency of  volitional  development  sometimes  completing  itself  in  the 
formation  of  habits,  can  have  no  absolute  or  mandatory  power. 
As  has  already  been  pointed  out,  the  power  of  the  individual  over 
language  may  extend  to  the  complete  negation  of  language ;  and 
this  side  of  that  extreme  there  is  no  law  of  speech  which  is  not  in 
one  way  or  another  conditioned  by  the  willing  acceptance  of  it  on 
the  part  of  the  speaker. 

The  only  restraining  or  restrictive  power  in  language  is 
that  of  damages.  This  is  the  only  injunction  that  can  be  placed 
upon  the  operation  of  the  laws  of  language.  I  am  free  to  do  as  I 
will  and  you  are  free  to  do  as  you  will.  Nothing  outside  of  lan- 
guage and  nothing  within  language  can  establish  a  fixed  procedure 

21 


which  must  be  followed.  Yet  this  freedom  is  never  absolute. 
Activity  in  language  is  incited,  is  spurred  on,  by  the  desire  of 
attaining  an  end,  the  desire  of  self-expression,  of  the  persuasion 
or  conviction  of  the  thought  of  others ;  it  is  restrained,  on  the 
other  hand,  by  the  fear  of  damages.  All  use  of  language  implies 
a  combination  of  will-powers — my  will  power  and  yours,  in  the 
present  instance.  The  desire  to  gain  you  for  my  side  compels  me 
to  address  you  in  as  winning  terms  as  I  can  command ;  and  the 
fear  of  losing  you  prevents  me  from  using  any  forms  of  language 
which  I  might  suppose  to  be  unintelligible  to  you  or  which  I 
might  suppose  would  arouse  your  hostility  and  antipathies.  Be- 
tween these  two  spurs  of  desire  and  fear  I  seek  to  find  a  middle 
ground  on  which  I  can  satisfy  myself  and  at  the  same  time  not 
offend  others.  Justice  in  language  consists  in  this,  in  the  right 
perception  of  my  privilege  of  free  and  self-determining  action  in 
its  relation  to  the  actions  of  others  about  me.  The  damages  re- 
sulting from  a  lack  of  this  perception  may  be  twofold.  On  the  one 
side,  I  may  suffer  a  loss  of  individuality  by  putting  too  great  stress 
upon  the  demands  of  my  audience.  I  may  strive  so  hard  not  to 
offend  that  my  use  of  language  may  be  determined  altogether  by 
what  I  think  will  fall  in  with  the  habits  and  predilections  of 
others.  In  that  case  I  am  likely  to  become  insincere  or  so  conven- 
tional and  colorless  that  I  shall  not  have  anything  to  say  that  my 
audience  would  ever  care  to  hear.  On  the  other  hand,  there  may 
be  an  excess  of  individuality.  One  may  cultivate  mannerisms  and 
pecuHarities  of  speech,  tricks  of  style,  as  have"  extremists  like 
Browning,  Whitman,  Meredith,  Henry  James,  and  many  another, 
which  may  act  to  the  damage  of  the  speaker  or  writer.  It  is,  of 
course,  every  man's  duty  to  himself  to  determine  just  how  far  his 
individual  peculiarities  are  acceptable  to  his  fellow  men.  If  they 
are  too  extreme  he  can  then  decide  whether  he  will  amend  them 
and  become  more  normal,  more  like  his  fellow  men;  or  whether 
he  will  persist  in  them  and  suffer  the  charge  of  originality,  or 
strangeness,  or  eccentricity,  according  to  the  degree  of  their  nov- 
elty. But  in  every  instance  the  question  is  not  one  of  attaining  an 
absolute  standard,  a  fixed  and  legal  right,  but  rather  in  taking 
one's  position  in  a  tendency  of  development  at  such  a  point  as  his 
powers  of  perception,  his  sense  of  the  justice  of  the  situation,  lead 
him  to  suppose  to  be  for  him  and  for  his  circumstances  the 
right  point. 

In  biology  it  is  customary  to  speak  of  any  development  of  an 

22 


organization  which  impairs  the  vitaHty  and  power  of  self-perpet- 
uation of  the  organism  as  degeneration.  By  this  analogy  we 
might  speak  of  degeneration  in  language  when  it  develops  in  such 
a  way  as  to  make  it  less  effective  for  the  purposes  for  which 
language  exists.  In  this  sense  we  may  speak  of  right  and  wrong 
in  language.  That  which  makes  language  better,  makes  it  a  more 
effective  organism,  to  continue  the  figure,  is  right ;  that  which 
makes  it  less  effective  is  wrong.  It  has  already  been  pointed  out 
that  effectiveness  in  language  must  take  account  of  two  sides,  the 
side  of  self-expression,  of  the  individual,  and  the  side  of  communi- 
cation, of  the  recipient  of  the  act  of  self-expression.  On  the  side 
of  communication  it  is  obvious  that  the  first  necessity  of  right 
language  is  that  the  speaker  or  writer  shall  realize  what  the  ex- 
pressive value  of  his  speech  is  to  the  public  which  he  is  addressing, 
what  the  general  social  trend  or  tendency  is.  This  is  the  chief 
province  of  education  in  language.  Such  education  begins,  of 
course,  with  the  first  spoken  word  of  the  child,  with  the  first 
realization  of  the  symbolic  value  of  language.  And  it  continues 
all  through  his  later  life;  in  his  reading,  in  his  speaking  with 
others,  and  in  his  writing,  the  child  and  man  is  continuously 
strengthening  his  sense  of  the  general  social  and  community  value 
of  language.  He  is  continually  adding  to  language  on  the  sym- 
bolic side.  But  at  the  same  time,  vigorous  minds  are  also  adding 
to  language  on  the  self-expressive  side.  A  speaker,  if  he  wishes, 
may  voluntarily  act  contrary  to  the  accepted  symbolic  value  of 
language,  or  he  may  act  without  the  suggestion  of  any  previous 
symbolic  value,  in  which  instances  he  either  establishes  a  new 
symbolic  value  or  remains  unintelligible  and  therefore  unpro- 
ductive. 

The  question  of  the  relative  value  of  these  two  intentions  in 
language — the  symbolic,  which  tends  to  become  the  unconsciously 
volitional,  the  habitual,  and  the  self-expressive,  which  tends  to 
become  the  consciously  volitional,  the  idiosyncratic — for  the  wel- 
fare of  language,  is  important  but  somewhat  difficult  to  answer. 
For  the  greater  effectiveness  of  a  language  shall  the  more  weight  be 
attached  to  symbolic  value  or  to  that  power  of  creation  in  language 
which  is  more  positively  expressive  of  individuality?  In  which 
direction  does  progress  lie,  in  which  degeneration?  In  the  first 
place,  it  should  be  noted  that  any  symbolic  or  general  value  which 
a  form  of  expression  may  now  have,  must  have  had  originally,  as 

,  23 


was  stated  above,  an  individual  value.  The  only  way  in  which  lan- 
guage grows,  the  only  way  in  which  it  could  have  grown  in  the  past, 
is  by  the  creations  of  individuals,  which  afterwards  were  accept- 
ed by  other  individuals,  who  thus  established  a  trend  or  tendency 
or  law  of  the  language.  But  it  is  inconceivable  that  anything  like  a 
trend  or  tendency  should  spring  full  grown  into  being.  Language 
has  at  present  its  vast  complicated  powers  of  traditional  and  sym- 
bolic expression  only  because  it  has  been  in  all  the  details  of  its 
vastness  and  complexness  individually  expressive.  It  follows, 
therefore,  unless  we  suppose  that  language  has  reached  its  ulti- 
mate degree  of  expressiveness,  that  all  future  progress  in  language 
depends  upon  individual  initiative.  The  conception  of  society  in 
which  there  is  no  differentiation  of  individual  from  individual,  but 
an  absolute  regularity  of  impulse  and  achievement,  a  complacent 
acquiescence  in  a  codified  and  established  system  of  human  activ- 
ity, whether  possible  as  an  actuality  or  not,  cannot  arouse  much 
enthusiasm  as  an  ideal.  In  such  a  society,  however,  the  laws  of 
language  could  be  so  formulated  that  they  would  not  be  disturbed 
by  the  freakishness  of  linguistic  malcontents.  But  if  our  concep- 
tion of  the  ideal  society  is  of  one  continually  bursting  its  bonds, 
of  one  which  makes  rules  and  laws  only  for  the  privilege  of 
breaking  them  in  order  to  form  better,  then  individual  differences 
must  be  permitted  and  encouraged.  The  interest  and  the  profit  of 
social  intercourse  must  rest  not  on  the  principle  of  likeness  and 
familiarity,  but  on  the  principle  of  diversity  and  originality.  The 
old  motto  must  be  the  watchword — an  open  road  for  talent.  The 
justification  for  every  innovation  must  be  its  success,  and  the 
success  of  every  creation  would  be  determined  by  the  standard  of 
its  immediate  present  effectiveness.  It  would  be  the  spirit  of  the 
law,  in  such  a  society,  to  depart  from  the  law  when  effectiveness 
was  served.  Every  new  law  would  be  right  if  it  increased  the 
possibilities  of  expression ;  every  old  law  that  in  any  way  restrained 
expressiveness  would  be  wrong,  a  mark  of  degeneracy.  Uniform- 
ity would  not  in  itself  be  a  mark  of  excellence,  but  rather  a  danger 
signal,  an  indication  of  a  sleeping  and  slothful  spirit.  Convention- 
ality, regularity,  would  not  be  virtues,  but  vices,  if  they  tended  in 
the  slightest  to  blur  over  individuality  in  order  to  produce  a  level 
of  mediocre  social  understanding.  Divergences  and  irregularity, 
provincialisms,  localisms,  and  even  vulgarisms,  on  the  other  hand, 
would  be  virtues,  if  they  were  the  expressions  of  real  characteris- 

24 


tics,  the  sincere  expression  of  a  people  who  Hved  their  lives  in 
such  surroundings  and  conditions  as  nature  had  placed  them  in. 
Perhaps  it  may  be  permitted  to  quote  here  a  paragraph  from  a 
recent  and  illuminating  discussion  of  the  dangers  of  an  undiscrim- 
inating  uniformity  in  social  traditions  and  customs.  The  author 
is  not  speaking  specifically  of  language,  but  of  general  social 
habits  and  ideals  of  conduct.  *I  speak  here,'  says  Professor 
Royce,^  'merely  of  tendencies.  As  you  know,  they  are  nowhere 
unopposed  tendencies.  Nor  do  I  for  an  instant  pretend  to  call 
even  these  levelling  tendencies  wholly  or  principally  evil.  But 
for  the  moment  I  call  attention  to  what  are  obviously  questionable, 
and  in  some  degree  are  plainly  evil,  aspects  of  these  modern  tend- 
encies. Imitation  is  a  good  thing.  All  civilization  depends  upon 
it.  But  there  may  be  a  limit  to  the  number  of  people  who  ought 
to  imitate  precisely  the  same  body  of  ideas  and  customs.  For 
imitation  is  not  man's  whole  business.  There  ought  to  be  some 
room  left  for  variety.  Modern  conditions  have  often  increased 
too  much  what  one  might  call  the  purely  mechanical  carrying- 
pozver  of  certain  ruling  social  influences.'^  There  are  certain 
metropolitan  newspapers,  for  instance,  which  have  far  too  many 
readers  for  the  good  of  the  social  order  in  which  they  circulate. 
These  newspapers  need  not  always  be  very  mischievous  ones. 
But  when  read  by  too  vast  multitudes,  they  tend  to  produce  a 
certain  monotonously  uniform  triviality  of  mind  in  a  large  pro- 
portion of  our  city  and  suburban  population.  It  would  be  better 
if  the  same  readers  were  divided  into  smaller  sections,  which  read 
different  newspapers,  even  if  these  papers  were  of  no  higher  level. 
For  then  there  would  at  least  be  a  greater  variety  in  the  sorts  of 
triviality  which  from  day  to  day  occupied  their  minds.  And 
variety  is  the  beginning  of  individual  independence  of  insight  and 
of  conviction.  As  for  the  masses  of  people  who  are  under  the 
domination  of  the  great  corporations  that  employ  them,  I  am  here 
not  in  the  least  dwelling  upon  their  economic  difficulties.  I  am 
pointing  out  that  the  lack  of  initiative  in  their  lives  tends  to  make 
their  spiritual  range  narrower.     They  are  too  little  disposed  to 


1.  Race  Questions,  Provincialisms  and  other  American  Problems,  pp. 
76-78. 

2.  The  italics  are  my  own,  not  Professor  Royce's.  An  instance  in 
language  is  afforded  by  the  'purely  mechanical  carrying-power'  of  conven- 
tional or  standard  expression. 

25 


create  their  own  world.  Now  every  man  who  gets  into  a  vital 
relation  to  God's  truth  becomes,  in  his  own  way,  a  creator.  And 
if  you  deprive  a  man  of  all  incentive  to  create,  you  in  so  far  tend 
to  cut  him  off  from  God's  truth.  Or  in  common  language,  inde- 
pendence of  spirit  flourishes  only  when  a  man  at  least  believes  that 
he  has  a  chance  to  change  his  fortunes  if  he  persistently  wills  to 
do  so.  But  the  servant  of  some  modern  forms  of  impersonal 
social  organization  tends  to  lose  this  belief  that  he  has  a  chance. 
Hence  he  tends  to  lose  his  independence  of  spirit.' 

These  considerations,  somewhat  general  and  ideal  though  they 
are,  have  nevertheless  their  practical  lesson  for  the  student  of 
language.  Our  vast  schemes  of  uniform  education  throughout  the 
country,  in  elementary  schools,  in  high  schools,  and  in  colleges ; 
our  literature  of  newspapers,  magazines,  and  novels,  so  general  in 
its  appeal  that  it  sells  from  Maine  to  Texas  and  in  the  country 
village  as  well  as  in  the  town  and  city ;  these  are  the  kind  of  in- 
fluences which  tend  to  make  us  forget  that  each  community,  each 
individual,  has  the  right  to  create  its  own  world.  The  conven- 
tions with  which  community  and  individual  are  surrounded  often 
prevent  the  discovery  of  this  appropriate  and  peculiar  world. 
The  best  language  is  that,  to  return  for  a  moment  to  the  termi- 
nology of  the  biologists,  which  functions  to  its  environment.  It  is 
only  when  language  does  this,  that  a  true  social  understanding 
can  be  attained.  It  is  a  shallow  notion  of  education  which  sup- 
poses that  a  uniform  or  standard  English,  merely  by  the  fact  of 
its  being  uniform,  can  bring  about  a  higher  degree  of  social  sym- 
pathy and  intelligence.  In  fact,  social  sympathy  and  intelligence 
are  as  likely  to  be  prevented  or  hindered  by  a  conventional  legal- 
ized standard  as  they  are  to  be  helped.  It  is  the  tendency  of  the 
standard  to  cover  over  distinctions,  to  eradicate  those  marks  by 
which  one  individual  is  appreciated  as  different  from  another.  But 
the  blotting  out  of  the  signs  of  distinctions  is  not  the  way  to  an 
increase  of  social  intelligence  and  understanding.  Since  individ- 
uality is  infinitely  diverse,  the  appearance  of  regularity  is  blinding, 
is  false  and  delusive.  The  true  road  towards  community  sym- 
pathy, towards  community  efficiency,  in  language  as  in  all  other 
social  institutions,  is  through  the  recognition  of  the  value,  of  the 
right,  even  of  the  duty,  of  individual  variation  based  on  the  prin- 
ciple of  truth  to  individual  character  and  environment. 


26 


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